Robert Redford felt restricted by sex symbol status

Actor Robert Redford has branded his good looks a “cage” which restricted his career. The Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid star was famed for his matinee idol appearance at the height of his acting career, and at first, he was flattered by his sex symbol status.
However, Redford now insists his image began to impact the way he came across on film, and he struggled to be taken seriously by the critics.
He tells the BBC, “I was surprised when (I was first called a sex symbol). And then I was flattered and I kind of enjoyed it for a while. And then I realised I couldn’t slide out of it and it was being attached to me in way that felt uncomfortable and it became a restriction, as in the performance I’d give would be overcome with how I looked. How the critic would focus on that rather than more subtle things within the character. That began to bother me and then I realised it was a bit of a cage and that it was really hard to get out of.”